Else Jeanette Dublon

Else Jeanette Dublon (* 1906 in Montabaur ; died 1998 ) was a German-Israeli dancer, dance teacher and choreographer, initially in Germany, after her Alija in 1936 in Palestine and Israel.

Life

Dublon was the daughter of Lazarus and Pauline Dublon and had a younger brother Kurt. The Sephardic Dublon family had lived in Wittlich for generations .

Her interest in the Jewish religion and culture motivated Else Dublon to embark on an artistic career. After graduating from high school, she took lessons with Mary Wigman in Dresden. In 1928 she took part in a preparation course for young people in Mannheim for the Alija; she was a member of "Blau-Weiß" and Hashomer Hatzair .

From 1929 to 1930 Else Dublon was a solo dancer at the Stadttheater Aachen . In Berlin she worked from 1930 to 1932 with Werner Finck in the political cabaret " Die Katakombe " and with the director Erwin Piscator at the Volksbühne . In 1932 she was at the Stadttheater Cottbus . Then she suffered an accident caused by her Nazi colleagues and could no longer give performances from 1933 to 1934.

During this time Else Dublon pursued her earlier interest in Jewish culture and visited the Hasidic community in Amsterdam for a few weeks at the end of 1933 . Here she collected ideas for her “Jewish Program”, with which she successfully appeared in the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (Cultural Association of German Jews ) from October 1934 . The program, which was positively received by Jewish critics and popular with the public, gave her the opportunity to support the Jewish Aid for Artists. But working conditions for Else Dublon in Germany became more and more difficult. In 1935 she performed in several European countries and the USA before emigrating to Palestine in 1936. There she initially lived in Kibbutz Yagur , but soon realized that she could not combine hard work in the fields and in the kitchen with an artistic career. She left Yagur and lived in Tel Aviv, later in Jerusalem.

With the choreography of the dance Mayim Mayim she achieved a great success in 1937, in addition she choreographed other folk dances, often on biblical themes.

The parents Lazarus and Pauline Dublon were deported to the Gurs camp on October 22, 1940 . They survived and were not deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau like many others . After receiving medical treatment in France, the Dublon couple were able to travel to Palestine in 1947, where their daughter and son, who had meanwhile been married, lived.

literature

• Art. Else Grünebaum-Dublon. In: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 128.
• Franz-Josef Schmit: "I am obsessed with dance". In: Trierischer Volksfreund, February 12, 2014 ( online )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ruth Eshel: Before the Beginning. The Prehistory of the Kibbutz Dance Company. In: Israel Dance Quarterly. Retrieved December 26, 2017 . 

Web links

• Historical photos of Else Jeanette Dublon in various roles: Photo collection of the Jewish Museum Berlin .